Stock futures traded mixed Tuesday evening as investors awaited another set of corporate earnings results out Wednesday morning. 

Contracts on the S&P 500 were slightly higher. The index had closed out Tuesday's session higher, led by a rise in technology stocks, which also pull the Nasdaq higher to outperform against the other two major indexes. Tesla (TSLA) shares steadied in late trading after jumping 4% for their first rise in four sessions. Peloton (PTON) shares had surged by nearly 16% during the session in its best day since May 2020, after the company announced a secondary stock offering that would net more than $1 billion. 

Better-than-expected economic data, with retail sales growing by the most since March in October, and strong earnings results from major companies including Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) helped fuel the broader markets' latest leg higher. Earnings results from the next batch of retailers including Target (TGT) and Lowe's (LOW) are due for release Wednesday morning. 

The upbeat data helped investors at least temporarily look beyond concerns over still-elevated inflation. And indeed, some of the growth in retail sales — which are reportedly nominally in the Commerce Department's monthly reports — likely stemmed from rising prices. Walmart executives during their earnings call Tuesday morning also noted that they were "seeing inflationary cost pressures in some areas" but were working with suppliers to "manage margins appropriately." 

Despite these inflationary concerns and the potential impacts of rising prices on corporate profits and spending, stocks have hovered near record highs. The S&P 500 was within 0.5% of its all-time intraday high by Tuesday's close. And according to some strategists, these moves suggest markets may be warming to the notion that inflationary pressures will ultimately moderate below current levels. 

“The markets generally are looking at it benignly – they are not discounting some longer-term inflation of more than, let’s say, 2.5%,” Steven Wieting, Citi Global Wealth chief investment strategist, told Yahoo Finance Live. “You can see this in the pricing out on the yield curve of Treasuries. You can see this in the composition of the market with growth stocks not really being beaten down by any concerns about some lurch higher, tightening of monetary policy. We think that story is largely correct – it’s benign for markets. It doesn’t mean we get to repeat the returns the past year, however.”

© 2021 LeackStat.com